Long Beach Alliance for Children with Asthma (LBACA)

Coalition Overview

Long Beach Alliance for Children with Asthma (LBACA) in Long Beach, California targets one of the most ethnically diverse cities in the U.S. The geographic catchment area is the city of Long Beach, with focused intervention on ethnically diverse, mostly Latino, low-income children. Long Beach comprises nearly 50 square miles at the southernmost end of Los Angeles County and is the fifth largest city in California. Almost 150,000 children under 18 years of age reside in the city of Long Beach, with 24,717 (17%) residing in the target area, of which an estimated 15% are children with asthma.

LBACA was formed in response to the Allies Against Asthma request for proposals. Long Beach has a strong tradition of community-based efforts with broad participation, although none had previously focused on asthma. In response to the funding opportunity, a core group of people in the community who had collaborated on previous efforts came together to develop the coalition and apply for this grant.

LBACA's activities, described below, placed families in the center of community-wide efforts to improve asthma management. These efforts included enhanced individual/family management; enhanced provider, school and after-school expertise and support; increased community awareness of asthma; and enhanced policies and environmental measures to reduce environmental exposures. At the core of the coalition's activities were several programs to facilitate coordination of asthma management efforts between family, provider, school and community health workers, with efforts to improve environments, raise awareness in the community and promote asthma friendly policies being sustained by the coalition.

LBACA continues to build upon the Allies work funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. With current support from The California Endowment, The University of Southern California (USC), and the Miller Foundation, LBACA continues to expand coalition membership and activities into the greater Long Beach area and surrounding communities, improve school and after-school program management and prevention of childhood asthma, and conduct outdoor air monitoring through a study with USC of eight local schools. It also:

expanded the Community Health Worker program and outreach efforts into new areas of Long Beach

provided PACE training to local additional providers

continued local policy efforts to include decreasing household environmental triggers and improvements in outdoor air quality

Open Airways for Schools : asthma management program for schools that educated students with asthma, parents and school staff

Tools for Schools: environmental management program for schools that prevents and remedies indoor air quality problems

Air Quality Flags:colored flags, consistent with the EPA's color-coded air quality index, were provided to schools to be raised on the flagpole to indicate poor air quality days when chidren's outdoor physical activities should be limited

Asthma Education and Training for Other Providers: educated and trained front-line staff at after-school, Head Start, recreation and child care sites to increase asthma awareness and management skills as well as help develop asthma friendly policies and procedures